As diabetics, I feel as though on occasion we lie to ourselves or are less honest with ourselves that we should be. The majority of the time when we are checking our blood sugar no one else is looking at that number. Unless you are going to your endocrinologist appointment within the next couple weeks, the majority of the time that number that flashes on your meter screen is for your eyes only.
However, sometimes we aren't checking and we aren't checking because we know that number is going to be horrid. We know that we just ate something delicious, we know that we guestimated while talking to our roommate, while whitening our teeth, while checking our email... So, we know that that bolus was way off. We know that the number that flashes before us is going to ruin our day. So, instead we don't check, we go off the way our head feels, slightly tense. We base it off our bathroom habits, peed 3 times in the past 1.5 hours and we base it off of our overall diabetes-senses.
When, in reality, if we check, we will know the true answer (or almost true depending on meter accuracy which is a different story) and if we know the true answer we can do a correction that is right, not based on senses or guilt. Either way we will be giving insulin, either way we have diabetes, either way we know NO ONE is going to see that number. So what is it that stops us from being able to deal with the truth sometimes?
I think this story goes for those living with type 2 as well. I remember one time being over at my grandparents house and my grandma was telling me that she didn't want to check because she just had ribs with BBQ sauce and she knew that her blood sugar would be high. Well, yes, her blood sugar was probably likely high, but we aren't perfect in our estimations sometimes. I find myself doing this sometimes, and sometimes it is is not guilt but laziness. I go off how I feel rather than what the results are. I mean, we wouldn't do that for a diagnosis of any sort, 'I feel like I have diabetes, therefore, I must have diabetes, where is the insulin?!' Instead we do tests to make sure we are accurate in our diagnosis and it is no different than doing a test to see where we stand in the land of blood sugar numbers, in the valley, on the plain or on the mountain.
So, I am going to work hard on checking, checking when I need to know, checking when I am giving insulin and checking when I don't feel well.
Kayla
I'm with you on this whole post.
ReplyDeleteGood job, you just influenced me the check my blood sugar. Forgot to at lunch.
so true about checking your blood for your eyes only!....i think i will now pretend that mike & bruce are looking over my shoulder every time i check haha
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